YAKIMA — In the span of under 24 hours, Tumwater coach Josh Wilson decided to change his tune.
After the T-Birds piled up a house of bricks from beyond the arc in a quarterfinal loss to Mark Morris at the 2A state tournament, the Tumwater skipper said that his side shot too many 3-pointers. Going into Friday morning’s loser-out game against Enumclaw, he went with a different tack.
“I kind of went with a positive today, where I told them that we’d get back to the statistical norm,” Wilson said. “We’re shooting like 15%, and we’re usually a pretty good shooting team, so we’re going to shoot well tonight.”
Now, a mathematician — or student a semester into a high-school statistics class — will tell you that the Law of Averages isn’t in fact real when it comes to everyday occurrences. Nothing about Tumwater’s first two games in Yakima, which saw the T-Birds shoot a horrid 10% from deep, demanded that they necessarily bounce back early Friday morning. But that’s what they did, hitting from range early and often in a 60-53 win over the Hornets.
“I put that out into the universe, and it looks like that happened,” Wilson said with a smile.
Tumwater came into the day having made six total 3-pointers in eight quarters this week — two against Renton, and four against Mark Morris. It took the Thunderbirds 14 minutes to match that, before Connor Hopkins drilled another triple before the half to send Tumwater into the locker room at a 41% clip at 7 for 17.
The T-Birds finished the game 9 for 24 from deep after cooling off a bit in the second half, but it was still by far their best offensive showing of the tournament; 60 points is the most Tumwater has scored in its past five games in Yakima, dating back to the Round of 12 last winter.
Hopkins drilled five of those 3-pointers, and finished with a game-high 19 points to lead Tumwater. He also logged three assists.
“He’s a great player,” Wilson said. “His year probably hasn’t been what he hoped it would be, but he’s a great player. Man, he came on at a really important time. And for a senior who has been an important piece of our program, that was great to see.”
Luke Brewer added 18 points, hitting three triples of his own and going 7 for 8 from the free-throw line.
Gunnar Harroun led the T-Birds on the glass with 10 rebounds; as a group Tumwater came away with 12 offensive boards and turned them into 11 second-chance points. Andrew Collins had seven points and seven rebounds before going down with an ankle injury in the second half; he spent the rest of the game on the bench but in his place, Clayton Morgan came down with five rebounds, a steal, and an assist.
The win earns Tumwater one more game, while sending home Enumclaw, and assures the Thunderbirds of some hardware. They’ll take on the winner of the other consolation semifinal — either North Kitsap or R.A. Long — bright and early at 8 a.m. Saturday, with the victor hoisting a fourth-place trophy and the loser taking sixth.
Either way, it’ll be the first time in program history that the T-Birds, who finished fourth last season, earn trophies in back-to-back years.
“These guys are about leaving their mark and their legacy,” Wilson said. “If we can get this one more and have two fourth-place finishes, 20-6 at the same exact record, those are two fantastic seasons that you’ve got to be excited about.”
